


love as a caging thing

by saffronHeliotrope



Series: invitation/complication [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, And everyone else - Freeform, Multi, Polyamory, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saffronHeliotrope/pseuds/saffronHeliotrope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t need reminding that everyone is pairing off while you have village-bicycled your way through this group of morons as if you’d never run out of time.</p><p>It occurs to you that maybe you need new friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love as a caging thing

**Author's Note:**

> _you will not see me fall, nor see me struggle to stand_  
>  _to be acknowledged by some touch from his gnarled hands_  
>  _you see, the cage, it called. I said, come on in_  
>  _I will not open myself up this way again_  
>  \- Phosphorescent, [Song for Zula](http://youtu.be/FcdOLKx2XG8)

It’s late, late enough that the band is recycling its material, and the wait staff have taken to hovering hopefully around the doors to the kitchen, no doubt eager to finish up and go home. Plenty of your friends are still littering the tables and the dance floor, which doesn’t surprise you at all, and you’re alone, which does.

Actually, you amend ruefully, leaning back against the bar on your elbows, perhaps it shouldn’t, all things considered.

You stifle a sigh and sip your single-malt as the band creaks into another rendition of “At Last.” The craziness from earlier has died down, anyway. Vriska was her usual self, a heat-seeking missile for drama, and seemed pretty well determined to burn at least three relationships to the ground over the course of the day. You wince, thinking of Tavros. At least he stands up to her now -- you’ve got to give him credit for that -- but old habits die hard. Poor guy looked like he was going to puke up his cake and champagne. You’re not sure what would have happened if Terezi hadn’t stepped in.

Come to think of it, you haven’t seen either Teez or Vriska in a while now. You don’t even want to think about the fallout if the Scourge Sisters are hooking up again. No doubt you’ll get it all in gruesome detail from Terezi later, and you’ll have to decide whether your duties as best bro include trying to talk her out of yet another iteration of the mutually assured destruction that is a go-round with Vriska.

You look around. Gamzee’s got his head down on a table, either passed out drunk or communing telepathically with the carefully-chosen linen tablecloths. Tavros sits beside him, combing fingers through his hair and smiling fondly into the middle distance. At an abandoned table, your brother and Jake are having what looks like an argument in whispers. They’re chronically on-again-off-again and from the looks of it they’re about to be off. Then again, the next time you glance in their direction, Jake seems to be trying to devour Dirk whole starting with his mouth, so perhaps you’re wrong. You wrinkle your nose and look away. Dirk’s lifelong obsession with Jake English, who says whatever crosses his mind and wouldn’t recognize irony if it pranced up to him in nothing but hot pants and a smile, is something you will never ever understand.

Then again, you’ve got your own bucktoothed wonder whom you suspect you’ll never quite get over, so you guess maybe you can cut your brother a little slack. Just a little.

The dance floor is sparsely populated. Aradia, round and radiant and gorgeous at six months pregnant, has long since left for bed. Feferi and Sollux went with her, of course -- they were never more than an arm’s length from her all day, transparently anxious. It was simultaneously sweet and more than a little strange. Things are changing. You’re not sure you can handle the idea of your friends starting to pop out sprogs.

The cutest new couple award, surprisingly enough, goes to Nepeta and Eridan, who seem to have finished their last dance and are now creeping out hand-in-hand, Eridan sneaking furtive glances around as if someone were about to make him stop. You still can’t wrap your head around that one. Equius has been a wreck of protectiveness and pride all day. There’s a burst of laughter from the table where Roxy, Jane, and Kanaya have their heads bent close together; Jane and Roxy spent the day recruiting Kanaya into their sisterhood of the traveling snark and seem to have succeeded with ease. You snapped some photos earlier of the three of them, tipsy and barefoot, dancing hand in hand like the three graces in a Botticelli painting.

And that just leaves... well, the two other couples on the floor. And basically the entire history of your love life.

The bride and groom twirl slowly in the center of the floor, reflections from the disco ball dancing over them like fairy lights. Now that things have settled down you can stop and appreciate how good the day has really been. The groom spent the day in an ecstasy of micromanaging, on the verge of flipping out about every detail, determined that everything would be perfect. You watched him nearly burst a blood vessel ten minutes before the ceremony because the roses were the wrong shade of coral, then turn around to shut down a simmering argument between Sollux and Eridan with a single well-placed rant. And then a moment later, the bride draped her arms around his shoulders, settling him with a smile and a kiss on his cheek, and you could see the tension melt straight out of him, transparent as glass.

They are perfect together, and obviously blissful.

Out on the dance floor, Jade -- inexpressibly lovely in her knee-length white lace dress, hair tied up and studded with flowers -- catches your eye over the top of Karkat’s head. She nods to you, eyes twinkling behind her glasses. You lift your glass to her.

You reflect, not for the first time, on your dubious position at this wedding. You’ve had romantic entanglements with both the bride and groom, even if it’s only because you and Jade dated for about a half-hour while you were sixteen years old. But Karkat, though. With Karkat, you’d had two years of gorgeous disaster, two years of incandescent sex and fighting and making up, of discovering the fathomless depths of ferocity and tenderness he hides behind bluster and bravado, two years at the brilliant glittering center of his attention. Two years of thinking it might last.

It didn’t. End of story.

A clear ripple of laughter tears your attention away to the other couple, and you can feel your heart yawn open, because then there’s them.

There’s Rose, who held you together after you and Karkat ended, after you showed up on her doorstep drunk and heart-shattered and ready to die of it. Rose, who more than anyone else knows you down to the bones, who could never make you whole but who made the breaks in you feel so beautiful. Rose, whose love is a strategy game, who gave you time to rebuild your walls, who let you see past hers but never quite invited you inside, who gave you exactly what you needed, and took exactly what she wanted.

Rose, who was never yours alone, who knew all your secrets and kept all of her own, who shocked you and Kanaya and Eridan all three by announcing one day that she was getting married to someone else.

Because there’s also John.

You flag down the bored bartender and ask for a refill on your drink, and while she pours you watch John twirl Rose on the dance floor. He’s tall and slim and broad-shouldered in his suit, and Rose sways like a flower on its stem. There’s an ache there as you watch them, as you watch _him_ \-- a pain as old as the day you realized that the world wasn’t going to give you everything you wanted, a hurt that grew deep and comfortable until you learned to call it love. There could never be any conceivable universe in which you wouldn’t be an idiot for John Egbert. John, the only clean sunlight in your life, the pure heart, the unclouded eyes. John the fucking nerd-ass cornball who makes you feel like you’ve been baptized in clear water. 

John the best friend of your heart. John the never-for-you.

John and Rose are rounding the home stretch toward their third anniversary and they gaze at each other like newlyweds. She matches him in a way that makes you long to reach for your camera, tall and graceful in slinky plum silk that hugs her curves. And half the time he dances like he’s a kid at his first high school dance, the irredeemable dork -- exaggerated swoops to the music, swaying and dipping Rose like Fred Astaire with none of the suave and 600% more cheese. He’s smiling that smile that warms you all the way down, like whiskey without the burn.

As the band grinds out the last notes of the song, John leans in close and says something in her ear, her hand laid flat across his chest. She lets out another peal of laughter, real laughter, sweet and musical. She never laughed like that when she was with you. Amused chuckles, certainly; wry smiles with a raised eyebrow, dry and detached, when you said something witty. But with John, she looks happy.

He pulls her close, hand on the small of her back, and kisses her deeply. She leans back a little in his arms, clutching his lapels.

You look away.

When you’ve retrieved your refilled glass she is on her way across the dance floor toward you. As she walks she pulls off one shoe and then the other, stepping delicately down barefoot, dangling the pumps by their wicked spiky heels. There’s a fine flush across her cheeks -- from the dancing or the kiss, you’re not sure.

She arrives at the bar beside you. “Champagne, please, two glasses,” she says to the bartender, then turns to look at you.

You take a sip of your scotch, almost too big a sip, almost start coughing. You are the king of debonair. You manage to get it down and then say with your voice only a little strained, “That was some fine dancing out there.”

The corner of her perfectly-painted mouth quirks up. “The Egbert-Lalonde School of Smoove Moves will be opening for business any day now.” Champagne arrives, and she sips; you watch the movement of her throat. “No dancing for you?”

“Nah. After ‘Rezi and I destroyed all competition with Bad Romance I figured I should let someone else have the spotlight. No sense stealing all the thunder on Jade’s big day.”

“Plus your partner seems to have disappeared.” She makes a bit of a show of looking around the dim ballroom. “Now I wonder why that is?”

You grimace into your glass. “Vriska.”

“Ah.”

You look sidelong at her where she leans back against the bar on one elbow, hand curled around her glass and held close, level eyes looking out at the room. Ordinarily you would call her out for being so fucking smug but all of a sudden you are just tired, bone tired of everything.

“They are so lovely,” she says abruptly, and you follow her gaze out to where Karkat and Jade stand. John has an arm around each of them, talking earnestly. Karkat is actually fighting back a smile and Jade is grinning all over her face.

“Yeah.”

“I get the feeling that it’s going to be all weddings from here on out,” she says. “Apparently Gamzee and Tavros are talking about a commitment ceremony, which would be unspeakably precious if it weren’t slightly terrifying.”

You don’t say anything. You don’t need reminding that everyone is pairing off -- or trio-ing off, as the case may be in the Casa de Megido -- while you have village-bicycled your way through this group of morons as if you’d never run out of time. Shit, you even hooked up with Eridan a few times. Talk about a train-wreck of douche. You brought out the absolute worst in each other.

It occurs to you that maybe you need new friends.

You realize belatedly that Rose has asked you something and you’re busy moping like an emo asshole. “Come again? I couldn’t hear you over my horrifying premonitions of a juggalo handfasting.”

She smiles. “I said, you're becoming quite the go-to wedding attendant. Aren't you getting tired of this?” You’d stood as best man for John, and you stood as part of the bridal posse for Jade, and you being you and your friends being your friends, no one mentioned the monumental awkwardness of you being very much Karkat’s Important Ex. All in all it had been ok, mostly because you didn’t let yourself think too much about it.

You’re not about to go spouting this to Rose, though, even though you’re about 99% sure she knows exactly how much you still care about Karkat, which is a lot. “No way. It’s a sweet gig. I get this bitchin’ monkey suit with the shiny lapels and all the little fried hors-d’oeuvres I can stuff in my face.” You’re babbling, deadpan, because it’s all you can do. “I wish we could have a wedding every weekend. I haven’t gotten my fill of the Macarena and I’m seriously pining for some more awkward toasts. Hell, maybe we can get Tavros’s dad to give an awkward toast _while_ doing the Macarena. I would pay good money to see that.”

She just looks at you. Your heart is breaking. You are going to die of loneliness and your tombstone will read, here lies Dave Strider, who loved everyone too much, and couldn’t love anyone quite well enough.

“Dave,” she says softly.

“Don’t,” you tell her.

“Don’t what?” asks John brightly.

“Don’t tell me this is the famous John Egbert, ladykiller and terror of the dance floor,” you say without missing a beat, “coming over to talk to little old me. Look out, I may swoon.”

“I’ll catch you,” says John. Rose hands him the other flute of champagne and he knocks half of it back in one gulp. He tugs at the knot of his narrow tie and unbuttons the top button of his shirt.

“Be still, my beating heart,” you say. “I’m going to hold you to that, you know. You can’t just promise these things and not deliver.” John leans against the bar on your other side and you bump his shoulder with yours. “How’s the happy couple?”

He bumps you back. “Ridiculously happy,” he says. “Cavity-inducingly happy. I was just imparting my hard-earned marital wisdom.”

“And what would that be?” asks Rose.

“Cook together. Get the smallest bed you can comfortably share. And if there’s an annoying job that nobody wants to do, the person who does it gets to decide how to do it.” Rose nods thoughtfully. You smile a little into your drink. Leave it to John to come up with some actually goddamn good advice.

“And my best advice is to find the ones you love and not let go of them,” John says. He slings his arm around your shoulders. You lean into him a little. He smells so good, as always: still so boyish, plain soap and fresh air. “That goes for you too, Mr. Always-The-Bridesmaid.”

“Me? Hell no. I’m a free bird and I can’t be caged. Dedicated lifetime bachelor and all. Plus I’ve already decided to be the creepy loner uncle to the next generation. I’m already stocking up on inappropriate baby gifts for the Arafefsol squirt. Thongs for babies and a onesie that says ‘fuck you.’ There’s a pink-and-yellow smuppet I’ve got set aside special. Shit, I’ve been in training for this for my whole life -- just ask my bro.”

John just watches you, and his eyes are bluer than blue. There’s a smile playing over Rose’s lips. You can’t shut yourself up -- the words just keep tumbling out. “And, you know, there’s the problem where all the good ones are taken. Present company not excluded.”

John sets down his empty champagne flute, then takes your scotch out of your hand and drains the glass. “Jesus, Egbert, hitting the sauce a little hard tonight, aren’t we?”

“Liquid courage,” he says. He looks at Rose. “Have you asked?”

“Not yet,” she says. “Things were taking a turn for the maudlin when you showed up. I hadn’t yet managed to bring the conversation around.”

“Maudlin?” you say. “How dare you impugn my emotional stability. There’s no maudlin here -- we are veritable icebergs of disaffected chill. Also, the fuck do you need courage for?”

“Shut up, Dave,” says John pleasantly. He takes you by the shoulders, straightens your tie, smoothes your lapels. “I was wondering. We were wondering. If you would. Um. What you’re doing tonight.”

You look at Rose, who rolls her eyes. “Well, I was planning to finish getting drunk on free booze, then a hot date with the huge-ass bed upstairs. Might make a pillow fort, might just pass out. I’m keeping my options open.”

John’s hands are still on your arms, thumbs rubbing absently at the shoulder seams of your jacket. It’s just a little odd, and you tilt your head at him. A cool hand insinuates itself into yours. When you look, Rose is quite close to your side.

She says, “What John is trying and failing to ask is, would you like to come upstairs with us tonight?”

You look back and forth between them. John won’t look up at you. “What, like --” like to watch a movie, like to play board games, there’s something you’re missing here, and then John’s eyes snap up to meet yours, and he’s a little flushed, and you’re -- just --

_Oh._

“But --” you say, then stop. “But you’re not --” you say, then stop.

“He’s not saying yes,” John says to Rose after a moment.

“Hang on, I’m also not saying no,” you say. John is flashing hopeful and nervous all over his transparent face. Rose is waiting, watching you. Every bit of brain has deserted your brain. “Are you serious?”

“Of course,” says John.

There’s something funny happening just behind your breastbone, like your circulatory system decided to have a rave and somebody brought the really good drugs. “Jesus fucking Christ, John, do you know how long I’ve been --” and then you clamp right down on that, you could bite your tongue clean off.

You hear Rose laughing low as she goes to collect her shawl and purse from a chair. John’s mouth looks like someone took the red on the picture and cranked it way up, clumsy and arresting. His hand slides down your arm until he can take your hand, interlacing his fingers with yours. John is _holding your hand_. “I’ve been figuring some things out,” he says.

You can’t say anything at all.

“Find the ones you love and don’t let them go, right?” he says.

“Are you coming?” says Rose.

You both turn and look at her. She’s standing by the door, heartbreaking and gorgeous, and the invitation in her smile spirals wide to include you both.

You are going to get _so_ laid.

As you get in the elevator Rose takes your hand. John hasn’t let go of your other one. He reaches for you, hesitates, then brushes your hair back off your forehead. Where his fingers touched your skin you feel burned, branded.

You think you might die if he kisses you, so you say, “This isn’t a pity threesome, is it?”

Rose laughs. Her other hand is already under John’s jacket.

“Wouldn’t tell you if it were,” John says, then leans forward a few inches so his lips brush over yours.

It’s possible that you’re setting your heart between them as between a hammer and anvil. Just now you can’t really bring yourself to care.

The elevator doors close, and up you go.


End file.
